For the ethnography collection, my group decided to divide up so we could research party songs, fraternity songs, or sports songs or chants. I chose to research party songs. I decided to interview five different people about party songs that they have experienced. I also asked them when was the first time that they heard it and where did they hear it. The only subgenre of the party songs that I was able to find was beer songs. I interviewed my girlfriend Dallas Frakes, Mitch Phegley, Jordan Carrol, Becca Sheetz, and Cameron Thacker, all of whom are students at Indiana University.
When I interviewed Dallas Frakes, she told me about a song called “Beer Run.” I have heard this song myself many times. Dallas explained that she has heard this song typically at parties when there is no alcohol or beer left to be drunk, which is typically late into the night when everyone is drunk. The purpose of the song is to get everyone at the party to want to go on a beer run, meaning running an errand to the liquor store to get more beer. It goes
B Double
E Double
R-U-N
BEER RUN
Dallas also explained that many country singers have transformed the repetitive chorus into a full lyric song.
Next, Mitch Phegley explained a song to me that goes,
One Tequila,
Two Tequila,
Three Tequila,
FLOOR!”
I have never heard this song at any party I have been to. It is more of a chant rather than a song that everyone sings. Mitch explained to me that people typically take shots of tequila when acting this out and after the third shot they hit the floor simultaneously.
In the third interview, Jordan Carrol explained a song called “The Beer Barrel Polka.” Again, I have never heard this song myself. The context of this song is an actual song that can be sang. The song went, as follows:
Roll out the barrel,
we’ll have a barrel of fun,
Roll out the barrel,
we’ve got the blues on the run.
Zing, boom, tararrel,
sing out a song of good cheer.
Now’s the time to roll the barrel,
for the gang’s all here!
Jordan explained to me that this is just the chorus of the song and he could not remember the rest of the lyrics. He first heard this song while he was in Europe with friends when they went out to a bar one night.
In the fourth interview, Becca Sheetz explained a song to me, which I found to be hilarious. Again, I had never heard this song prior to the interview. This song was more poem-like than the other songs presented to me in the interviews. Becca said that she first heard this song while she was at Daytona Beach with some of her guy friends. She said all of a sudden they started acting it out while they were drinking beer late at night on the beach. It went like this,
Beer is much better than a woman,
I’ll tell you why I’m right,
a beer will not get mad at me
if I stay out and drink all night,
a beer will go down easy,
a beer is always wet,
do I want a wife?,
NO THANKS!,
another BEER?,
YOU BET!”
Lastly in the fifth interview, Cameron Thacker presented another song to me, which I had never heard prior to the interview. This song was another poem similar to Becca’s song. It went
Oh there was a little man and he had a little can and he used to dredge the growler.
He’d booze and he’d booze and he’d booze and he’d booze and he’d booze up to his collar.
No booze today, no booze today. There ain’t no booze on Sunday.
No booze today, no booze today. Better come back on Monday!
Cameron explained that this was typically sung when he would get together with his friends on his farm and all the beer was gone on late Saturday nights.
Discussion:
I found that all of these songs to be very amusing and interesting. I was surprised to hear that four out of five of the songs I had never heard prior to the interviews. An interesting detail that I found was that all of the songs had to do with beer and not drugs. When I hear the words “party songs” I would typically think of either beer or drugs being involved and in my interviews I only found beer to be involved. I really enjoyed doing these interviews and I hope you enjoy the songs that I found as much as I did.